


pick me apart, put my pieces together

by thespottedowl



Category: Banana Bus Squad, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: ????? i guess, Duel Monsters, Eloping, First Meetings, Homeworld (Steven Universe), Inspired by Steven Universe, Kino (Tyler's Dog), M/M, Monsters, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Running Away, Scavenger Marcel, Voldemort (Marcel's Dog)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespottedowl/pseuds/thespottedowl
Summary: Homeworld makes Marcel nervous.It’s a fair assessment. A lot of his job description is avoiding other gems entirely, and there’s a fair number of gems quite a lot stronger than him he runs into on Homeworld.The gem is small, maybe a little taller than Marcel but at least a head and a half shorter than the Jasper he’s with. His grey gem gleams on the back of his neck, a large pentagon that sparkles as he summons his weapon into his hand. The two scavengers facing him look just as surprised as Marcel feels, and the girl lets out a short, sharp chuckle, but the gem just looks resigned, holding his ring sword in front of him defensively.There's something about the sad Diorite that makes Marcel want to stay.
Relationships: Marcel | BasicallyIdoWrk/Scotty | fourzer0seven
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	pick me apart, put my pieces together

**Author's Note:**

> hey folks! this is the first part of my contribution for the bps may event!! I was paired up with Madi, who asked to work on her steven universe au, and this is the first part. it includes artwork with the characters she designed. hope you all enjoy!

From his seat at the helm of the ship, Marcel can see the surface of the new planet rising up to meet him, and beyond that, the seemingly endless bounds of space. He stays put only a minute longer, letting his mind settle and focus, watching the rough terrain encroach into his view until the last star fades over the jagged horizon. Then it’s a flurry of preparations for landing, aligning the landing gear and scanning the surface for anyone who might pose a problem.

The ship, lovingly given the moniker ‘Voldemort’, is clean for the most part, if not cluttered. One wall is lined with bubbled shards and gem monsters, colourful stones encased in his teal, and the other with twisted metal. He’s good with his hands, always has been, and there’s plenty he can assemble with ruined pieces that no other scavengers want. In this case, he’s looking for a particular part, hoping to improve Voldemort’s speed, but anything worth holding onto, he can find room for. It’s only a matter of who else is here hoping to find something worth having.

Marcel leaves the ship cautiously, pulling his bat out to roll between his knuckles, calm himself. It’s a pretty wasteland-esque planet, dry dirt packed under his feet, beige mountains rolling in the distance. He knows there’s a wreck less than a mile from here, but walking in is safer, prevents him from attracting too much unwanted attention. He takes up an easy, paced jog, hood bobbing behind him as his feet hit the ground.

It’s only a few minutes before the downed ship appears in his eyes, and he can see the glint of a gem for a moment before it disappears out of sight. Marcel sighs, gripping his bat more steadily, trying to ignore the slide of sweat already forming on the leathery grip. If he’s lucky, it’ll be something small, a weaker gem monster, but he’s not often lucky.

He approaches slowly, scanning over the outside of the ship. There’s at least a few things he’ll be able to take off, nothing that he needs but could sell for some change. There’s skittering inside, and Marcel hesitates only for a moment before popping his head in the entryway.

There’s only a few spots of light, streaming in from the damage in the roof, but most of the ship is shrouded in shadow. It’s smaller, smaller than Marcel’s — it must have only belonged to one person, but it’s still in relatively good shape, if not already a bit picked over. A lot of the central console is missing, some bent wires still stuck in place, but what’s more worrying to him is the scratch marks around the hole. It’s definitely a gem monster, but until he can get his eyes on it, he’s not sure how dangerous it is.

He wanders into the second room, eyeing up the remains of the engine. Some parts of the combustion chambers are missing — most of the hot section, actually, he thinks as he walks around it — but the cold section, most of the intake manifold and inlet are still in place, and Marcel’s already trying to figure out how quickly he can get it taken apart and loaded back on his ship.

There’s a noise in the corner of the room. Marcel whips around.

Squinting into the darkness, he can just make out the shape of the monster crouched in the corner, shifting slightly as it sizes him up. His eyes are just starting to adjust, catching on the pink gem on its chest, when it pounces at him.

It looks almost like a crab, scuttling towards him on four clicking legs, massive pincers open as it rushes towards Marcel. He scrambles out of the way, immediately trying to get himself behind the thing. From the quick glance he gets, moving in the opposite direction, the beast’s only weapons are its enormous claws and maybe a maw, sitting between its eyes and gem, but there’s nothing protecting its back, and Marcel dances around its side, feet moving quickly over the dusty metal, to smash his bat down hard on its shell.

The crab roars, swinging around in a furious arc to smash a claw into the wall. Throwing himself on the ground, Marcel can feel the dust rain down on his back, and he scrambles along the rattling wall. The monster roars again, tips of the dactyl legs clicking on the floor, charging at Marcel again. If it’s possible for a crab to look angry, it does, tiny eyes glaring at Marcel, who’s sprinting around the other side of the torn-up engine. His mind is scrambling as much as his feet — the monster is tall, taller than Marcel, and its armoured shell makes it mostly immune to Marcel’s bat, unless he gets enough hits in. He’s already tiring, chest heaving as he slides around behind the crab again. Its gem and eyes seem vulnerable — the soft and squishy parts do tend to be — but they’re also protected by the thing’s massive claws. 

It’s turning around slowly, and Marcel pushes himself up to stand on top of the engine, feet slipping off the rusty metal as he clambers to the top. Before the monster can get turned all the way around again, he launches himself off the motor and lands squarely on the monster’s shell.

The surface is slippery, and Marcel loses his balance before he can even get a hit in, hands grabbing uselessly at the slick surface. The monster makes an irritated clicking sound, and before Marcel can get his feet under him, it swings a claw over its head. It whistles over his head, blowing his hood off, and as he tries to flatten himself out, the crab tilts to the side, throwing Marcel to the side.

He rolls as best he can, but he still takes the impact hard on his shoulder. “Fuck,” he hisses, teeth gritted as he picks his bat up. It would be a worthwhile strategy if he had something grippy, but with the monster already on him, there’s no time to find or make anything useful. He dances back again; the thing seems to be using its claws more as clubs than as scissors, which really doesn’t help Marcel to know. 

Marcel skips backwards, drawing the crab scuttling after him. It looks focused now, eyes swivelling in his direction, as though it’s decided he’s dinner tonight and it’s upset he’s not on board with this plan. Turning his back to it, he starts to run with a little more intensity, drawing it into a cat-and-mouse game around the engine block in the middle of the room. It’s a large room, and he’s really betting on the fact that it doesn’t have enough higher brain function to consider stopping and eating him when he runs right into its back.

He’s also betting on the fact that he’s faster.

He gets lucky there. The monster is bulky on its needlepoint legs, and it only takes half a dozen laps around the chunk of metal before he’s running directly behind the monster, trying to stay as quiet as possible, lest it swing around behind itself. Marcel runs as close as possible, trying to catch his breath for just a second, before he dives to the ground, throwing himself almost directly under the monster. His bat is held straight out in his hands, and as his chest hits the ground, he pulls it back towards him, bracing the base against the ground as he yanks it straight back. He jerks it back as quickly as he can, hauling his weapon back against the monster’s entire weight.

It’s practically slow motion the way the huge shell tips to one side, falling with a final crash onto its back.

Marcel stays on the floor for a moment, breathing in the scuffed cross-hatching. The monster doesn’t appear to be able to flip itself over, though its legs are still flailing in the air. Huffing one more breath against the dusty floor, Marcel pushes himself to his feet and thumbs over the base of his bat again.

Steeling himself, he crosses the floor to where the crab is still wriggling around on its back and pulls himself up to standing on its belly. The monster hums out a growl, something low and rumbling, and thrashes a little more furiously, but Marcel ignores it, edging his way to the centre of its carapace, where the plating seems to coalesce into a soft hourglass shape. The shell covering its belly is still firm armour, but softer somehow, flexing inwards where Marcel puts his feet down. He shuffles forward, feet on either side of the centrepiece, and wraps his hands around the handle of the bat as though it were the handle of a sword instead. Raising his arms above his head, he brings the cap of the bat down firmly on the seam of the crab’s shell.

It makes a horrible noise, a groaning sort of cry over the crunch of its shell, and dissolves into white light. The pale red stone drops to the ground with a solid clunk, and Marcel lands a few feet away from it.

With a sigh, he pulls his hood back up over his head. He bubbles the gem soundlessly, flicking his fingers to send it back to Voldemort, and approaches the engine block again. Depending on the style of ship, there may be turbines that need to be disassembled too, and he doesn’t want to be on this planet any later than sundown.

It’s almost six hours later that Marcel’s beginning to trek back to Voldemort, and the twenty minute walk seems to take even longer as he focuses on the bubble of metal he’s floating behind him. He imagines it like a balloon on a string, bobbing along connected to him, except he can feel the weight of the metal dragging down on him. There’s sweat dripping down his back, and the setting sun’s rays glow harshly as it disappears behind the mountains, as if it’s trying to set him on fire through sheer willpower.

Marcel likes to think that Voldemort’s happy to see him come back from a scavenge alive, even if it is just a twenty-year-old hunk of metal. He floats his bubble up the aft ramp behind him and lets it dissolve, dumping the parts onto the ground next to him. Wearily, he begins setting them up on the shelves, sealing each one as best he can — it’s not the most fun to be brained by engine carcasses while trying to get out of a planet’s atmosphere. For all that he had stripped off of the tiny ship, it only takes him half an hour to get them all put away, and the little bubble of crab gem tucks right into the wall of bubbles he’s collected. Settled in enough for his liking, Marcel flops back into the captain’s chair and starts the ship up.

Voldemort hums to life under his fingers, light fading out in the back room of the ship and directing power towards the main thrusters. It’s not hard to get off this particular planet, the weak atmosphere doing some good for them, and when Voldemort is set safely on track for the last planet in their string of stops, Marcel lets his head drop back to the chair’s headrest. He’s asleep almost instantly.

When he wakes a few hours later, slumped over the systems information display, his shoulder is screaming in pain. He rolls it, annoyed, and sits up in the chair, pushing himself off of the navigation panels. They must be in between star systems, because the cockpit is only faintly lit, and he can’t see any planets, even with the massive peripheral view the windshield gives him. Ah well. There’s plenty inside the ship to occupy him. Voldemort will get him where he needs to be.

Marcel’s got a guilty pleasure habit of modifying weapons. Scavenging can afford him many weapons or very few, depending on who’s been at the site before him, but there’s some oddities tucked away in his stash, and some on his person, too. The simplest is probably the knife blade hidden in his hoodie clasp, but there’s a repeating crossbow hidden in the depths of the shelving, a jar full of liquid that had made him laugh uncontrollably when he touched it (he’s a little scared to pick that one back up), and what he thinks might be a sickle sword tucked in among a pile of scrap metal. He looks longingly at the workbench tucked in the corner, the gutted taser waiting for his hands, before turning back to his actual work with a sigh.

The parts he picked up from the ship today demand his attention. He’ll get to play another time.

* * *

Homeworld makes Marcel nervous.

It’s a fair assessment. A lot of his job description is avoiding other gems entirely, and there’s a fair number of gems quite a lot stronger than him he runs into on Homeworld. 

He brings Voldemort in for a landing, settling in safely between a cargo ship, grey and decrepit, and something white and large, maybe a transport ship, with the name ‘Kino’ painted on the side. Sitting ramrod straight in his chair, he adjusts Voldemort's settings, letting the lights flicker on in the cargo area, and takes a deep breath, blowing it out slowly before he stands up.

The cargo area is cluttered with parts he’s been pulling down from the shelving, choosing what to bubble and take into the city with him. He’s narrowed it down to a set only about as high as his waist, all parts that he’s repaired to the best of his ability. It’s a functional way to survive, if you can get them sold for a high enough price, and doing the tune-ups on his own has pretty much secured that for him.

He bubbles the whole set and is floating it down the ramp when a commotion from further down the docking bay grabs his attention. There’s four gems arguing, one of whom he recognises. It’s another scavenger, a gem a lot younger than him, seedy and desperate in a way that makes Marcel avoid him instinctively. She’s squaring up with a massive Jasper, crooked, nasty grins on both their faces. The other scavenger she’s with doesn’t look happy about the argument, but Marcel can tell from the look in his eyes that he’s too gone to even care about who she tussles with anymore.

Marcel almost loses his bubble out of sheer surprise when the scowling, hulking Jasper steps back to let his companion forward.

The gem is small, maybe a little taller than Marcel but at least a head and a half shorter than the Jasper he’s with. His grey gem gleams on the back of his neck, a large pentagon that sparkles as he summons his weapon into his hand. The two scavengers facing him look just as surprised as Marcel feels, and the girl lets out a short, sharp chuckle, but the gem just looks resigned, holding his ring sword in front of him defensively.

On one hand, Marcel’s not eager to stay and watch the fight. The scavengers have hungry looks in their eyes, looking thrilled with the possibility of eating a pure gem, and he knows they’ll fight like dogs for the chance. He’s got deliveries to make, too, needs to get in to see his dealer and then get out before anyone displeased with the scourge of scavengers decides to take it out on him.

On the other hand… he doesn’t know if the look in the Diorite’s eye is resignation towards the fight or the pain that follows. There’s a part of Marcel, wildly hopeful, probably delusional, that thinks he might be able to talk down the scavengers. He could offer parts, if it’s a ship they’re after, or any of the gem shards he has bubbled, if it’s the gems they’re interested in. He rather hopes it’s the former, that any pair of scavengers wouldn’t be deluded enough to attack this Jasper, that no matter how desperate for Life Energy they are, they wouldn’t go after this monster of a gem, seemingly built for fighting.

His mind is made up for him. The female scavenger pounces forward.

Marcel lets his bubble pop safely inside of Voldemort before he stalks towards the fight. The Jasper has paced his way up to the ramp of the Kino and is waiting there, arms crossed, watching the fight almost judgmentally. Marcel tries not to glare at him as he walks past.

The Diorite is holding his own surprisingly well, and doesn’t look terribly exhausted yet, either, which Marcel is impressed by. The female scavenger — a Pyrite, maybe? Marcel hasn’t gotten a good look at her gemstone yet — has a knife clenched in each fist, and whirls around the Diorite, slashing wildly. He’s been able to hold her off, for the most part, deflecting with his forearms and the circular blade held tightly in his hand, but she’s advancing on him, trying to pin him between herself and the gem she’s traveling with, who’s holding something long and sharp — a scythe, from what Marcel can see, swinging it in slow, lethal strokes behind the Diorite’s back.

As Marcel watches, the Diorite grits his teeth and swings. With one hand up already, holding the girl’s knives out of his way, the blade carves a slash through the air and right through the girl’s stomach.

She stumbles, a shocked look spreading across her face for only a second before she falls, white light consuming her. Only her gem hits the ground.

Clenching his jaw, the Diorite turns back to the second scavenger, who’s holding his scythe loosely, clearly not expecting the fight to be turned back on him. He falls into an amateur fighting stance, blade too close to his face and legs too far apart, and Marcel sees the furrow that appears between the Diorite’s eyebrows before he charges.

Marcel watches, dismayed, as the Jasper lazily bubbles the girl’s gem and lets it float back onboard the Kino. He arches an eyebrow at Marcel.

The Diorite is clearly winning when Marcel turns back to the fight, and the young scavenger knows it too, looking scared and backed far into the realm of defensive. He’s using the scythe more for deflection than the actual blade, but even so, there’s an open wound running long and bright down the full length of his arm, pale light streaming out of the gash. The grey gem is starting to get choppy with his movement, pressing more savagely towards the scavenger, and it’s only a few more hacking chops with the ring sword before a slice lands on his neck. The scavenger looks shocked before exploding in a burst of white light.

The Jasper bubbles that gem, too, Marcel thinks the Diorite might as well have been bubbled for all the vivaciousness he floats onto the ship with. The Jasper almost herds the lacklustre gem onboard, giving Marcel a second, more dangerous look, before they both disappear into a room on board that Marcel can’t see from the outside.

Feeling slightly justified in his unwillingness to return to Homeworld, Marcel treads back to Voldemort’s ramp, slowly collecting the few pieces that have begun to escape the hastily-dropped pile of parts. He bubbles the whole set back up, and tries to banish the encounter from his mind as he leaves the bay.


End file.
